WPBN-TV Traverse City

5404
Channel 7 Michigan

WPBN-TV owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group is an NBC affiliate broadcasting form M-72, just west of Traverse city. Its transmitter is located on east of Kalkaska, Michigan. The channel launched on Sep 13, 1954 shares duopoly with WGTU which Sinclair operates via local marketing agreement. Cunningham Broadcasting is the original owner of the WGTU. WTOM-TV is the full-power satellite of the station that operates form a transmitter located on U23 east of City while the transmitter of WPBN on east of Kalkaska.

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The repeater does not maintain any presence in Cheboygan but is available as far as Cedarville, Brevort, Petoskey and Indian River. It was originally built to cover Sault Ste. Marie and Eastern Upper Peninsula. The duo collectively gets the branding TV 7&4 and has a wide presence in the land area east of Mississippi River which includes 23 counties in the Northern Lower Peninsula, 3 in Eastern Upper Peninsula and pockets of Northern Ontario including Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The channel is not available in Canada on cable since early 2000s. The satellite also serves as default television NBC service for Alpena.

Slogan: Fair. Accurate. Honest

Sister: WGTU

Website: www.upnorthlive.com/

 

History

WPBN signed on air on Feb 13, 1954 on VHF ch 7 and was owned originally by Biederman family through their company Midwest Broadcasting. WCTM was the radio sister of the television and was established in 1940. WTOM was launched exclusively for the Cheboygan area on Mary 16, 1959 after the approval of Federal Communications Commission. Until 1971, the channel shared CBS affiliation with WWTV. The ABC affiliation was replaced by WGTU when it hit the waves in 1971. The company wanted to extend its operations in Northern Michigan in 1980 but FCC ordered them to sold some of their assets if they wanted to pursuit the expansion. WPBN which was previously carrying some of ABC’s sports content alongside its satellite was released to U.S. Tobacco.

US Tobacco held the channel until 1986 when it released it to Beam Communications. Beam had eh ownership over the channel until 1990 when it sold it to Federal Broadcasting Company. Raycom emerged as the new owner of the channel from 1999 to 2005. On Feb 28, 2013 Barrington Broadcasting announced the sale of WPBN to Sinclair Broadcast Group; the deal consummated on Nov 25, 2013.

It currently broadcasts 37 hours, 10 min of local news-bulletins on weekdays with 7 hours, 5 min on each weekday and 1 hour on Sat and 1 hour 5 min on Sun. You can watch the channel online and follow it on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Here is the website: https://upnorthlive.com